


The Wages of Sin Have Never Been Reduced

by lexicale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexicale/pseuds/lexicale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his twenty fourth birthday, Sam doesn't disappear from a diner in the middle of nowhere. He doesn't wake up in Cold Oak, North Dakota, and he's never stabbed in the back by Jake Talley. Instead, his demonic heritage manifests in a completely different way: three pairs of shadow black wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wages of Sin Have Never Been Reduced

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternative to 'All Hell Breaks Loose', and thus, takes place at the end of season two.
> 
> Written for the prompt found [here](http://samdean-otp.livejournal.com/105546.html?thread=497226#t497226).

The first two come in on Sam's birthday, the next pair a week later. 

The third ones don't appear until they're both well into freaking out and tying down a demon in a devil's trap to grill, because they haven't found _any_ reason for this to be happening. No obvious reason, anyway, and Dean knows exactly what reason is in Sam's head. 

After they exorcise the son of a bitch, Sam goes quiet, and Dean tries to play it up like nothing's wrong.

"You'll be okay," Dean says, because he always says it, never believes it. "You'll be fine."

Sam is laying on one of the motel beds, face down, the dark leather spread wide, stretched out. They're insanely long. Long enough that Sam can't open them inside the room. Thirty foot wingspan, at least. But the weird thing is, they're not thick. They're thin and arched, shaped like scythes, and there are three pairs of them. Six in all. It should look like a mess of limbs, and okay, sometimes, it does, but there's something strangely graceful about them too.

Sam is silent.

Sam's been silent for awhile.

"We'll get this fixed," Dean insists, and one of the smaller wings, one of the lowest pair, shifts, curls in. Dean can't blame him. The promise rings hollow to Dean's ears as well. "Jefferson, or Bobby or... _someone's_ going to know something, Sam, and then--"

"Stop."

Sam's voice is low, firm but not insistent. It lacks the purpose that Sam usually has, so commanding in his stubbornness. Dean doesn't like the way it sounds. Defeated.

"Sam--"

"You know what this is," he continues, and Dean's been wanting Sam to say something for a day and a half now, ever since the demon they caught smiled lecherously at Sam and called him Hell's whore. Ever since he looked Sam up and down, like a piece of meat, and said _You've always been ours, Sammy boy._

And wasn't that just the last thing Sam needed.

"Fuck that," Dean growls.

"Dad was right--"

"Fuck. That."

"You should just--"

" _Sam_ ,” he says, cuts his brother off. It’s that absolute voice of authority that hasn’t worked on Sam in years but Dean’s too used to relying on it. Too used to being Sam’s parent, and Dean still somehow always expects it to work.

He doesn't know any other way to gentle Sam, and he's all too aware of how his little brother gets wrapped up in this. The way it sinks down in him, as if he could ever be anything evil.

But it's not something he can ignore or wish away. Not anymore. 

Dean licks his lips.

"I'm sorry that I can't fix this. You _know_ I want to, Sammy. But..."

"But this is just what I am."

"You don't have the first idea what you are."

Sam pushes himself up, having been laid flat on his stomach to allow his wings freedom, pushes himself to hands and knees and Dean feels his breath catch a little as the wings move, one after the other, like silk pulling back, layers of black skin and ebony bone, beautiful and hypnotic. Sam looks over at him.

"I think I have a pretty good idea of what I'm _not_ ," Sam grinds out, voice too swollen with grief for it to be steady. Sam in pain always kicks up that big brother instinct in Dean. Makes him want to beat people up or buy Sam some candy or run his hands through his little brother's hair, anything to make it better. Anything but have an emotionally honest conversation -- the one thing Sam always wants from him.

"God, Sam, just...just shut the fuck up. I'm tired of having this conversation with you."

"The last time we had it, I didn't have _wings_."

"So?"

"So? _So?_ You seriously don't get why this is a _big deal?_ "

"I just--" Dean lets out a groan of frustration, rubbing a hand through his short hair, scrubbing at it. "There's nothing _wrong_ with you."

"I have fucking wings!" Sam screams, actually _screams_ , and it makes Dean jump, way too loud in the cramped motel room. "You heard what he said! And what Dad said. What _Dad_ said. God, how in denial can you be?! I am _fucked. Up_. I am _everything_ we ever hunted and everything we were raised to despise. How can you keep pretending that this isn't happening? Our _father_ told you to _kill me_. I have death visions in my head. There's a demon out there that's been interested in me since I was a baby and people keep _dying_ over my _bed_. I'm immune to demonic disease and I _belong_ to Hell, apparently, and this isn't something that was done to me. They came from _inside_ me, and I can't--I can't--" Sam sits up, curling in on himself, hands grasping his bangs too tight, the butt of his palms pressed to his forehead. The wings arch and rise, too delicate and beautiful to be as evil as Sam claims, but Dean can't deny that he fears them. That he fears everything Sam might be. 

On a whim, Dean's hand darts out, grabs the thin bone of one as it passes near him and Sam hisses. It's the first time Dean's touched one of them. Acknowledged them as something _real_. 

The bone is so small and slender, so easily snapped. It's covered with paper thin black leather, smooth and warm to the touch, and Dean stares at where his hand connects with Sam -- with Sam's strange, foreign body -- and he lifts his other hand, lets it drag slowly over the wing in wonder, at the way it shivers with each pass of his fingers.

And Sam goes boneless.

Dean manages to slide in, throwing himself forward to catch his brother as he collapses off of the edge of the bed, knees hitting the motel carpet hard enough to hurt, but he doesn't feel it. He just catches Sam, who's bigger than him now but still, always, his little brother. Sam, who is sobbing into Dean's neck.

Dean's eyes wince shut.

It's been a long time since Sam cried like this. Nothing like the quiet way he cried at Dad's pyre, or the way they silently ran down his cheeks at Jess's graveside. These are loud, awful, hitching sobs, pitched with moans that sound like an animal in pain. Something suffering.

Dean doesn't even have to think. He just bundles Sam in close, as if Sam were still small enough for Dean to protect him from the world.

But it's not like Sam doesn't have a point. This _isn't_ the world. This isn't some outside threat that Dean can hunt down and threaten, kick down a door and shove a shotgun in its face. He wishes he could. The excess adrenaline and every instinct in his body is yelling at him to do something, to fix this, to somehow make it better. But this is something inside of Sam, something that, apparently, has always been in him. Dean's scared, and worried, and feeling more than just a little desperate, but he doesn't know how to tell Sam that none of that matters. That if this has really always been a part of Sam then it doesn't matter, because Sam's still good. Has always _been_ good.

That no matter what their dad said, Dean still believes in Sam.

He never had faith in any god or fate, or anything in his life turning out okay, but he's always had faith in that. Faith in Sam.

Dean curls over him, something needle sharp in his chest every time Sam chokes, every time he makes another sick and horrible noise, and Dean grasps him, holds onto him through the storm. He lays himself out over Sam's shoulders, one hand holding onto skin, the other a wing, tight and unrepentant, the only shield he can give him as Sam sinks down, pressing his face into Dean's lap as he cries.

There's no way in hell Dean'll let his little brother go.


End file.
